Out of my League
by The Flavor of the Weak
Summary: Ryo recruits Kazu to help him win Rika's heart. There's just one problem. Kazu is already in love with her himself. A Rukazu romantic comedy.


Disclaimer: Flava doesn't own Digimon. If she did she would be eating mangos and pineapple all day long. But she doesn't so no mangos and pineapple all day long for her. Just most days.

We invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents...

**Out of my League**

**Prologue**

"_Fever!_"

"Fever?"

"You have to say it enthusiastically. I mean, honestly. It has an exclamation point on the end," Kazu pointed out sarcastically, as he sat with his friends, pooling over the flyer Rika had set in front of their table at lunch. They stared at it reading the lines printed in fancy calligraphic font over and over again, wondering if Rika was really serious. She couldn't actually believe that they would do this, could she?

"_Please, _you guys. Don't make me result to more extreme measures," Rika threatened stubbornly, casting a dark look to the males in the crowd with her amethyst colored eyes. They stared firmly into the blank spaces on the flyer, undaunted, as if trying to fill them in with her mind.

Rika was not for a moment worried.

"Well, I'll sign up!" Jeri, who was sitting with her half-eaten ham and cheese sandwich in her lap, chimed, grabbing the pen from Kazu and writing her name on the first blank line on the flyer.

Rika smiled, nodding appreciatively in Jeri's direction. "Thanks, Jeri. Who's next?"

She looked to Henry. He had suddenly found his watch exceedingly interesting. She looked to Takato. He had suddenly began to complete his algebra homework. She looked to Ryo. He stared right back at her, bright blue meeting cold purple in a clash.

"Well, Akiyama? Are _you _going to sign up to audition for my mother's monstrosity?" Rika asked, unflinching as she forced the pen against his hands.

Ryo glanced around looking for some sort of relief, but he found none. "Um...well, I'd be a lot less apprehensive if you didn't call it a monstrosity."

Jeri began reading the plot outlined above the sign-up list out loud. "Wow, this sounds great! 'A young maiden falls in love with a handsome thief but the evil Prince wants her as a wife'..." Jeri swooned, lacing her fingers together and batting her eyes. She leaned close to Takato on her left, her raspberry hair brushing against his shoulder. "Don't you think so, Takato?"

Takato's cheeks flushed a crimson color as he stuttered, wide-eyed, "Ye-yeah! It sounds fantastic!" He then snatched the pen out of Ryo's hesitant hand and wrote his name down below Jeri's. He then smiled enthusiastically at Jeri.

Rika decided to pressure Henry next. She looked him straight in the eye, and he couldn't avoid it no matter how hard he looked at his watch.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Rika asked, raising her eyebrows. She had unseen magical persuasive powers. Probably inherited from her mother.

Henry shrugged. "Well, I guess..." He took the pen from where Takato had left it lying and wrote his name down.

"Thanks." Rika smiled genuinely, then turned icy again as she looked to Kenta and Kazu.

"And you? What's your excuse?" She looked from Kenta's confusion to Kazu's apprehension.

Kenta's dark eyes crossed the paper dully. Well, his friends were doing it, he might as well too...

So he wrote his name below Henry's, sloppily and lazily. He then put the pen in front of Kazu, who looked down at it with about as much excitement as a person at a funeral. He picked it up hesitantly, examining the fake golden clip the broadened at the end where the button was to release the pen point. He pushed it down, gulping, wondering why on earth he was doing this. He couldn't act. He'd never been in a play in his entire life. It was ridiculous. What, what in the entire world could make him fork over his reputation to help out a friend?

He looked at Rika sheepishly. She was talking Ryo again, persuading him to write his name down on the paper. She pursed her lips and batted her eyes, as Ryo blushed and muttered something like, "Well, okay, if you _really _want me to..."

Oh yeah, Kazu recollected. That's why. _She's _why.

And he wrote his name down, counting every letter carefully, watching how he curved the pen. He sincerely hoped he wasn't making a terrible mistake.

Ryo took the pen next and wrote down his name effortlessly, as if he were signing an autograph. He smiled his signature smile at Rika and boasted, "Well, there you have it, wildcat. You got us all. Entrapped us with your powers of persuasion."

Kazu fake-gagged. Takato and Kenta sniggered, trying not to let the ice queen notice them laughing at her expense. Nothing good could come from that.

Rika picked up the flyer triumphantly, like she had just won a battle in war. She folded it and put it into her book bag. "Thanks again, you guys. Really, you're all life savers."

"Imagine what she'd have done had we not signed it," Kazu sniggered again. This time Jeri joined in the laughter as she popped a grape into her mouth.

Rika's eyes caught Kazu's coldly and flashed a caution sign at them ominously. Kazu immediately stopped laughing, and instead grinned at Rika like a fourth grader. Cheeky and secretive.

"Rika, how did your mom get you to do this? I mean, you aren't the type of person to be in stage production. Particularly one being directed by your mother," Jeri asked taking a sip from her can of soda.

"Well...it's kind of weird story..." she went on talking, and Kazu would have kept listening, had Ryo not nicked him, Takato, and Henry on the side of the head.

"Well, guys, I need your help," Ryo began quietly as they formed a kind of huddle around one half of the table.

They waited expectantly for him to finish his request. A smile crept up his cheeks as his whispered, "I need you to help me win the roll of the thief."

They all looked around nervously. What was so important about winning that part?

He answered their silent questions. "I need you to help me win her heart," he replied with a nod towards Rika, who was grinning as she and Jeri exchanged silly stories about their families.

"Rika?" Kazu suddenly blurted out, a little more loudly than he should have. He wasn't so sure he had heard right.

Ryo nodded, grinning. "Yeah, Rika."

And this was when Kazu realized that no matter how in love he was with Rika, he couldn't stand up to the invincible Ryo Akiyama.

He sighed and sat back, looking into his lap. _It doesn't matter what I do, _he thought. _She's just..._

_Out of my league._

_----------------------------_

**Authoress' note! **Technically this could be called the rewrite of the Girl From New York...even though this is entirely different. The only similarities may be a few things I borrow from that fic and that Kazu is the main man. But I got sick of writing OC-centric. So here is Ryuki/Rukazu joy for all you who like that sorta thing. If you do, then yay. Yay indeed. From this point on I will be writing in Rika's and Kazu's POVs because I am so much better at that than in first person. So now I go off to get ready for bed before Conan O'Brien comes on. Yay.

**Please review! **


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